It's Geo-Engineering or Extinction

It's past time to tell it like it is. Don't let anyone say otherwise.

A recent article in The Conversation suggested that lying about our not needing geo-engineering, earth repair, or whatever else it takes is a good thing because telling the truth only encourages the undoubtedly evil forces of the fossil fuel sector to drag their feet even more.

This is the same logic of a liberal climate campaigner who recently suggested, in all seriousness, we should lie to the great British  public about 1.5°C—say it is still possible to stay below the limit when it self-evidently was not—because to "give up" would only encourage the bad guys to not keep to their 1.5°C "targets." There is one line in the article which knocks down this whole "trying to be all clever" house of cards: in 6 years, the world needs to have halved emissions to stop us from going over 2°C. As a reminder, 2°C means 1 billion refugees, just for starters. Or, to put it another way, the world has 4-5 years left of the carbon budget for 2°C if emissions remain at present levels (in case you have not been paying attention, they are still going up).

You can mess around with these figures, but that's like German generals trying to mess with the estimates of Soviet tank production in 1944. One thing is clear—the present political arrangements are well and truly fucked. Just as they were in Germany in 1944-5. No one was coming to save the Nazis, and no one is going to come to save our neo-liberal elites who sat on their hands for 30 years. They have lost it big time. The biggest elite failure in human history. So, with all due respect, the last thing we want to worry about is a bit of moral hazard with regard to the soon-to-be totally fucked fossil fuel execs. They are yesterday's guys, and the best we can do for them is to send them books about the Nuremberg trials. Best to be prepared.

To remind ourselves—effectively all the key tipping points will be crossed or locked in by 2°C. We will not suddenly stop emitting carbon even then. And the three essential add-ons—removing air pollution (0.5°C), carbon lag (0.3°C), and the albedo effect from the melting Arctic and Antarctic (0.2°C)—will need to be put into the mix. So we will be well on our way over 3°C as the main scenario by mid-century, with a small probability of a super-exponential explosion of methane emissions, along with an almost endless list of other positive feedbacks. Anyone who seriously thinks we are going to get out of this objective existential crisis in 2024 without fuckloads of messing about with the climate system is either ignoring the maths or on another planet.

What the public is crying out for more than anything is for someone to be straight with them for once. At the moment, things are going backwards, and liberal bullshitting strategies are entrenched across the public sphere. Lying, as I was taught to believe, does not end well. And when the public finds that their kids are going to starve, those in authority are going to have the mother of all "not-ending-well" scenarios. I am sure the authors at The Conversation are nice, well-meaning people with impressive PhDs. But the path to hell—or, to be more precise, human extinction— is paved with good intentions.